Today, my big sister turns 50.
As children, we really didn’t like each other that much. That’s probably not completely true. But it’s true that, with 3 1/2 years between us, we really never knew each other well enough to decide if we liked each other.
Looking back, it’s obvious that our life cycles were rarely in synch.
When we moved from Topeka to Vassar, I was in the middle of second grade, and life was a grand adventure. Tina was in the middle of fifth grade and very conscious of being the new kid.
When it was time for me to move from a one-room school to junior high, I suffered my own new-kid angst. But Tina was headed into her sophomore year already plotting how to get out of the house and start her next chapter.
A few years after she started college and we began to find more similarities than differences, she got married and started a family. I was a high school senior still trying to figure out what to do with my life.
From there, our lives continued to diverge.
Tina started her family nine years before I had my first child. While I was learning to juggle motherhood and career, she was preparing for the teenage years.
And, we had Mother to bridge our many gaps. During our daily phone conversations, Mother would fill us in on each other’s life as well as what was happening with her and Daddy. Mother was the one who told me that at age 29, Tina had been diagnosed with breast cancer. I don’t recall talking to Tina about it at the time, but I always knew how her treatment was going and when she received her “all clear.”
Everything changed, of course, 12 years ago when Mother died, and Tina and I lost that crutch. In the past decade, we’ve gotten much closer, e-mailing frequently, talking on the phone every couple of weeks. We’ve discovered that, although we always enjoyed reading, we now have similar tastes. It’s a joy to share books and discuss them.
We’ve also finally started having those heart-to-heart talks that I always envied in other sisters I’ve known. That’s what a health scare can do for you.
You’d think that breast cancer would be enough, but, no. During the last four years, Tina has educated me about a condition called Chiari malformation. It’s congenital, meaning she was born with it, but it usually isn’t diagnosed until middle age.
The short explanation is that the brain changes shape and ends up blocking the space needed for spinal fluid to circulate around the brain. The effects are ever-present headaches, often blinding, that are exacerbated by sudden coughing, sneezing and laughing; as well as impaired motor skills, similar to the after-effects of a stroke.
During the past four years, I saw my big sister struggle with balance issues, lose feeling and strength on one side, learn to use a cane and qualify for a permanent handicapped parking tag. In her late 40s, her body was acting at least 25 years older.
My sister is a stubborn cuss, however, and persevered through sheer doggedness. I would have been bedridden, but she continued to work a full-time job. Finally, though, she decided to explore surgery, a move her daughter had been badgering her about for four years.
The surgery in early August, in short, removed a piece of her skull near the bottom back of her head and replaced it with a titanium piece that was bowed out slightly, designed to create space for the spinal fluid to circulate freely again. Her recovery and the physical therapy that went along with it was grueling. Her friends and family tracked her progress on Caring Bridge.
Tina and her family came to our house a few weeks before Christmas. It was four years after the Christmas we learned about Chiari malformation after Tina slowly collapsed on her kitchen floor while walking from the stove to the table. (She was resisting a cane at that point.)
During our Christmas celebration of 2010, Tina was laughing, walking without a cane, carrying bags of goodies in both hands, maneuvering stairs without hesitation and showing none of the ever-present exhaustion to which we were accustomed.
Best of all, she walked around with her new granddaughter on her shoulder — something she never would have attempted before surgery.
And she shared a telling comment, recalling a day recently that had ended with the realization that she didn’t have a headache, a symptom that had been ever-present since childhood.
At 50, my big sister is starting a new life — one free of pain. And I’ve received the best birthday present — a new sister when I hadn’t realized the old one was missing.